The Board of Investments (BOI)-led private sector undertaking, the Cold Chain Database Project, which is an integrated supply chain solution, will be launched February next year.
The project involved other government agencies and according to the BOI, an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, the database is for policy formulation and investment promotion.
“It maps out existing cold chain service providers, estimates and forecasts supply and demand for cold chain service, and generates data on present and future cold chain service gaps focusing on agriculture and fishery products, which needs to pass through the cold chain,” said the BOI in a statement on Friday, Dec. 23.
The cold chain database will serve as guide for investment promotions and where this whould be to meet the Philippine Cold Chain Industry Roadmap’s target of increasing local cold chain capacity by 50,000 pallet positions per year in the near term, it added.
The BOI noted that the launch of InsightSCS Corp., the developer of the DeliverE platform, is a positive development for the database. It was forged via a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among the BOI, the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) through its Global Partnership for Improving the Food Cold Chain in the Philippines funded by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and InsightSCS Corp.
“The project is remarkable and exactly how I envisioned it during the onset of discussions,” according to BOI Governor Marjorie Ramos-Samaniego.
Ramos-Samaniego has called on the private sector to support the cold chain database project for a “robust” data analytics that will lead to the creation of “intelligent, business-informed decisions and relevant policies.”
Pierre Carlo Curay, CEO of the InsightSCS Corp. said the project was a success despite the challenging data collection. “We were able to mitigate and pivot and figure out how we could gather more data,” he said.
Meantime, Mae Valdez, the National Policy and Regulations Coordinator of the UNIDO Project stated that she is hoping other agencies would find the database useful.
She said the project has been significant in generating relevant data for other programs being implemented by other agencies such as the development of guidelines for the Minimum Energy Performance for Sectors (MEPS) for the cold chain industry by the Energy Utilization Management Bureau, a line bureau of the Department of Energy (DOE).
The BOI said guidelines support the implementation of Republic Act No. 11285 or the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act. “Also, the EMB is coordinating with InsightSCS Corp. regarding the generated data on refrigerants relative to the country’s commitment under the Kigali Agreement on the phasing down of hydrofluorocarbons as refrigerants,” said the agency.
Acting Chief of BOI’s Agri-based Industry Division, Francis Peñaflor, said the cold chain data base will help the government its investment promotions. “With the database’s completion, specifically on generating viable investment locations based on supply-demand gap analytics, the BOI can now fine-tune its investment prospectus for the cold chain industry,” he said.